–Place was PACKED. I’d say at least 3/4 of the people there were standing. Made it impossible to see what was happening when they fought outside the ring (which they did in every match).

–It was definitely a bit of an older crowd compared to old ECW shows back in the day. It basically looked like everyone from the old days had grown up; not a lot of kids or teens there. I was actually quite surprised how many guys had attractive girls there with them. Not something I saw a lot of back in the day at ECW shows. Hey good for them!

–The show did start late. They aired a video package in tribute for all the wrestlers who have died in the last decade and then a taped promo by Douglas but the sound wasn’t working. Nice touch but not a good omen.

–The show started with a tag team match with 4 guys whose name I couldn’t hear. Crowd hated it.

–They then did a “match” with 2 more indy guys. One of them was this little tiny Asian guy who took the mic before the match and started talking to the audience in a high-pitched voice that made him sound like William Hung. Then this guy comes from the crowd and told both of the wrestlers in the ring to scram. Nobody had any idea who this guy was. He then called out Shane Douglas, who didn’t show up. Funny thing was that Shane was literally standing right behind us in the crowd.

–Then the “ECW” part of the show started with the FBI vs BWO. Richards, Marmaluke, and Guido were probably the only 3 guys on the entire show in good shape. Match was total comedy. Highlight was Guido and Meanie doing a thumb wrestling war on the mat with the ref giving a 2 count when Meanie had Guido’s thumb down. The same unknown dude from the last segment distracted Richards for the finish. It was never explained who this guy was.

–CW Anderson and Al Snow were next. Anderson looks like he’s about 60 now. Snow was grossly overweight. He was winded just from doing his entrance. Match was a disaster. Anderson put an armbar on Snow no less than 5 times. There were several chants of “Armmmmmmmmmbar” as a homage to the old Chris Jericho “Man of 1004 Holds” promo. Snow beat up Head after the match and then went running back begging for forgiveness, which was actually pretty entertaining.

–The segment with The Gangstas vs Angel was also pretty bizarre. Angel came out asking for someone to be his partner (did Devito no show?) but nobody came. Gangstas then came out (Mustafa looking absolutely huge and not in a good way) and beat him up for 3 minutes before the indy guys from the 1st match came in, beat them up for like a minute, and then left. One of them looked to have gotten into a legit fight with a fan on the way out that was broken up by security, but it was hard to tell. Complete waste of time.

–Somewhere in here they did a planned spot where the ring announcer was making some general announcements, the lights went out, and they brought out a stripper to try and recreate the Kimona Wannalaya strip tease from that time they lost power at the ECW Arena. The stripper basically just writhed around on the mat like a sizzling piece of bacon in a skillet. It was a little weird.

–Raven vs Pitbull 1 was next. Raven (also looking very heavy) had the “New Flock” with him which included a La Parka wannabe, “Jersey Shore”, and “Cripple H” (who may actually have been unable to walk). He ran down the crowd and the late Pitbull 2. The Flock then beat up Pitbull. Sandman’s music hit. Crowd loved it, although the entrance went on for literally the entire “Enter Sandman” song (which is a good 5 minutes). Meanwhile, the Flock was still beating up Pitbull in the ring the entire time. Raven just stood on the apron the whole time and eventually ran away without ever doing anything. Sandman canned the crippled guy, which was kind of cringe-worthy even by ECW standards. This is right around the time the crowd started to turn.

–Crowd loved Jerry Lynn. He came out to a chorus of “Save the show, Jerry” chants. Him and Crowbar put on a solid, old-school ECW style match. Spot of the night was Jerry Lynn doing a hurricanrana from the top rope onto a guardrail that was wedged between the ring and the crowd. Not the greatest match by any means, but it might as well have been Benoit vs Guerrero or Lynn vs RVD compared to the rest of the show. Lynn got a standing ovation on the way out.

–Of all the guys who looked like the gained weight, nobody looked like they gained more than Shane Douglas. He could barely move (I was stunned when I read he apparently won on a sunset flip, which sounds impossible based on the few moves of his I did see). My friends and I decided to leave in the middle of match to get a head start on parking (we weren’t the only ones; people were leaving in droves). Chants of “Go back to Target,” “refund,” and “eat a salad” were very audible during the parts I was there.

–Rob Feinstein was there. Is that even news? I hadn’t heard his name since “the incident”.

–Crowd was red hot all night, but like I said they turned somewhere between the New Jack and Raven matches. The nostalgia could only take it so far. The actual show was awful sans the Lynn/Crowbar match. They announced a return date in June. which got booed mercilessly.

It’s not like we went for any other reason then the nostalgia, but to me this was more like a wake than a rebirth. One last chance for us to say our goodbyes to ECW, I’ll give them credit for trying, but there’s no way this thing is going to last with all of these guys completely out of shape. I think we’ve seen enough of these poor reunions now to know the dream is really over. To steal a phrase from the Undertaker, I think ECW needs to just rest in peace forever now.

And then there’s this:

Extreme Reunion issued an announcement this morning that due to a technical issue with their video/audio mix, they were delaying the release of their iPPV download of last night’s show by several days.

The announcement noted, “We want to offer the highest quality product to you the customer, therefore please allow us a day or two to get technical, and fix the remaining issues to upload the best possible iPPV VOD Video Download as possible. ***If you would like a refund please email us at refund@extremereunion.net and we will be more than happy to accommodate your request –no questions asked!”